Somewhat tangential: One of the things I was most disappointed in when visiting Japan was discovering (at least in Tokyo, Kyoto etc.) that they don't really seem to have the concept of a public green space as it exists in Europe.
Instead most of these parks have fences around the grass, and you're not allowed to lie down there and hang out. Some are also "temples" and have guards that'll yell at you if you even sit down out of the way on some stairs for a second.
I live in Amsterdam, and in general I'd much prefer living in a smaller house with no yard of my own if there's a big park nearby, but in Japan I'm not so sure. If I can't use the park for anything worthwhile (lie in the sun, have a BBQ etc.) I'd rather just live in an American-style suburb with my own small yard.
There are plenty of parks in Japan where people hang out, lay in the grass, play instruments, practice their lines, drink socially, enjoy their lunch, walk their dogs, go for runs, etc.
I suspect what is a park and what isn't might not be easy to tell as a tourist. If you are trying to lounge in something that isn't technically a park, there's a good chance it won't be received well.
That being said, in Tokyo, most of the central public parks are packed during the weekends. Tokyo could definitely use a lot more, imho.
I'm not familiar with public green spaces in Europe, but there are definitely traditional parks all over Japan. In one place I lived, there was a sizeable park with a nice walking path through the woods just off the train into the city; it was always nice to look out the window and and see all the families hanging out there on the way into town. Where I studied abroad, there was an open park that regularly had town events, but more notably had beer vending machines, so it was always full of loud foreign college students; there was a quieter one with hills and trees where locals walked their dogs a little further away. Osaka castle park also has a lot of grassy area to just hang out; everyone goes to picnic (read: drink) there when the cherry blossoms are blooming. Parks did seem a little more sparse in Tokyo.
RE: the stairs, sitting on stairs anywhere is sort of bad manners in Japan (considered to be rude), but in most places it would be excused, especially for a visitor who doesn't know better; temples are a different story though. Same thing for sitting directly on the ground IIRC?
Grass just doesn't grow as well in East Asia as it does in much of Europe and North America. Something about the climate or soil type, I'm not sure. If you want pretty grass in Japan, you have to keep people off it. I suggest looking up at the beautiful trees instead.
Strange, I just came back from a trip to Japan and didn't really notice this. In fact I was surprised at how packed the parks were with families in tents on the grass. Maybe it is just Tokyo, since I didn't visit any parks there besides Ueno.
Shinjuku Gyoemmae in Tokyo had lots of grass and people sitting on it including from what I can tell Japanese people. Hiroshima has green areas along the rivers complete with park benches. Kyoto has Arashiyama but that is on the outskirts of the city. That has beautiful walking paths and benches. What I didn't see is people sunbathing. That doesn't seem to be a thing like it is in Europe.
One of my fond memories I have from a trip to Japan is sitting on the grass in a park in Tokyo and sipping on green tea acquired from a nearby vending machine.
I find these types of articles invigorating and demoralizing at the same time. I think the reason why, and something I've thought about a lot lately, is: what would it actually take to do something like this? It'd probably involve a series of steps like this to do _exactly_ this:
* Decide to run for office
* Raise an enormous amount of money, somehow without indebting yourself to private interests
* Convince a large amount of people to vote you into office
* Bring to bear an enormous amount of political capital to convince other people to enact these changes
That involves no small amount of luck and personal charisma. I probably have none of these things, so that leaves me out.
There are other methods that are potentially easier (the one that comes to mind is effectively paying off an incumbent politician), but I'd roughly guess that there's only a 40-60% chance to get the outcome you want. Even easier actions, like calling your representatives, I'd peg at 2-5% expected value. Voting is <0.1%.
Are these really our only options? Am I thinking about this problem wrong? Is this just the great struggle of human governance we've been trying to solve for millenia?
A real problem is that public service is underpaid. I live in a state with a part time legislature that is paid $27k/year. I'm never going to run for office and derail my life by earning next to nothing and being co-mingled into a system I find full of corrupt and detestable people.
America has a perverse relationship with politics, politicians, and governance. Politicians do some of the most important work possible in our society, but by underpaying you only attract certain types of people. Either those just hungry for power, using office as a stepping stone to wealth. Or those already wealthy looking to maintain existing structures and protect their wealth.
I don't mean to sound flippant. Our system of government is an evolved process settled on over millennia. It's really close to some local maximum.
My gripes are mostly centered around complaining that we "all know" there are obvious problems with the system but there isn't some obvious "continuous" path of from here to a better system.
If I were benevolent dictator I'd like to see something like futarchy. And even while saying that I'm not sure if it just appeals to my hyper rationalism or if it's genuinely better. I assume current legislator suffer from this same bias on all kinds of issues.
Frankly, running for office is the worst way to effect change of this sort.
Zoning isn't really driven by politicians in most polities in the US as it is the public who firmly believe their NIMBY-ism is necessary to protect their children, property values, and way of life (although not necessarily in that order of priorities). The local planning boards and town councils are mostly responding to whatever signals they receive from their constituents.
If you want to change things, you need to change public opinion. The best case scenario of jumping to the top with some sort of majority cabal and changing things against public opinion is that you'll be voted out in the next cycle and all of your changes undone.
Instead of campaigning for public office, you should start a campaign to inform the public with concrete, incremental, individual proposals for changes to zoning and explain how those proposals will increase property values, protect children, and improve the quality of life in a way consistent with people's desires.
If you succeed, whoever is currently in office will happily put your proposals into practice as a feather in their own cap.
And if you can't convince a majority of the people in your community, well, should your desires and opinions have priority over theirs?
I don't think even luck and charisma would make a difference. Humans just don't deal with change well, and "you're going to change the character of my neighborhood" is going to make a large subset of any neighborhood violently angry.
Look at the backlash over 'gentrification'. No, we like our squalor just the way it is!
What we really need to do is force every resident abroad for a year so that they can see the alternative to "life as I've always know it".
There are workshops to prepare you for running for office, and it doesn't have to be all consuming.
I'd like to see more support for credentialed STEM professionals who are willing to take time out of a career to hold public office, but there are at least a couple of options out there already.
Edit: Actually, working with a think tank like Rocky Mountain Institute might be even more in line with your thinking. Let me know if you're curious and I'd be happy to make some introductions.
If a majority of the populace supports your position, you'll have a much easier (though by no means easy) time doing the above.
If a majority doesn't, then it's a feature of democracy rather than a bug that you probably won't be able to do it.
But lets assume you've identified a real winner of a platform. You don't have to start from zero to make it happen — there will be existing candidates and organizations looking to achieve the same goals as you, and you should just join those campaigns.
For example, many American cities have YIMBY clubs. Join yours and they'll have lots of great input on how you can put your finite volunteer time to effective political use.
Zoning is particularly tough as the people who would benefit most from improved cities often don't yet live there and can't vote. Thus, the agencies that regulate zoning are effectively captured by local residents who, for completely rational concerns about their uninsurable property values, push for lots of legislation designed to mitigate change.
I found chapters 6 and 7 of "The Captured Economy" by Lindsey and Teles to be the best exposition on this. They also detail a few ways one could change the system (eg. paying staffers more to attract better talent would make lobbyists jobs harder).
Quiet resignation is always an option! (I get so jealous when I go to Tokyo or Munich and see that they have a functioning society. But I'm resigned to the fact that I live in a country where the trains don't run on time, and people are just okay with it. As an immigrant to the U.S. to begin with, I can hardly complain.)
These decisions are made by zoning boards. My borough's zoning board consists of:
* 3 retired people who asked or were asked to be on the zoning board
* 3 vacant seats
Quorum is - you guessed it - 3.
If you live in my borough and you ask to be on the zoning board, you'll be appointed at the next council meeting. They almost never meet except when someone dies, someone new is appointed, or they need to reorganize (yearly).
Yeah there is a lot of paperwork and headache if you want to massively change the currently zoning of your area, but provided you're violating state or federal law in doing so it's not a remotely insurmountable task.
In Japan's case what it took was losing World War II and subsequent military occupation. Japan's zoning is the result of mid 1940's "industry best practice" where the zoning industry was fledgling and interrupted by war and depression. It was accompanied by land reform that redistributed land wealth downward. A foreign power declared it by fiat and implemented it under martial law. One might say that Japan's stacked zoning exists because Macarthur didn't have to hold an election. The Allies held war crimes trials instead...a type of political climate historically conducive to land reform and sweeping legal changes.
Martial law is probably not the alternative you're looking for.
This problem is solvable, but not by a single person acting alone - we have to build a movement, and being the actual candidate in office is far from the only role. Getting sympathetic candidates elected is one of the later steps in a long process. Before that, we need lots of people working on movement building, small fights, activism, research, organizing... there's so much to be done!
I'm part of a group working on this problem in NYC. If you (or anyone else reading this) are in New York and potentially interested in helping, shoot me an email! (my HN username at gmail dot com)
Because zoning is not national (thankfully!) in the United States, you should be able to do a lot at the local level.
I don't think you'll have to raise a lot of money to do this. Typically you really only need to have the desire to do it. Hardest part is probably convincing people to vote for you.
Do something like what? Move from a local to a nationally defined zoning scheme? That's not trivial for a country of any size. But moving your local zoning from exclusionary to inclusionary is theoretically possible, specifically because the consensus required is much smaller.
A politician isn’t supposed to enact their own will. In theory all you need to do is convince the constituents or the people who pay the politician with a public media campaign.
As a Brit something that always struck me as strange was that Americans all seemed to own large, detatched houses. It just seemed odd to me, and whilst it's true that a lot of the US is less dense than the UK I find it fascinating that the zoning laws seem to massively encourage and protect single family homes.
Partially this is social engineering. Progressives at the time zoning became popular thought that if you isolated people with their families and made it less convenient to get to, e.g., taverns then they would become more responsible. This was considered particularly important when the people affected were Irish, Italians, Poles, etc who were considered in need of becoming more responsible at the time.
As a European living in a large-ish American city, it's very entertaining to me to listen endlessly to Americans complain how "bad traffic has become lately with all these people moving in!"
They want:
1. Large, sparsely populated suburbs, away from everything.
2. Cars to drive long-distances from their suburbs to "the things we want to actually go to when not sleeping".
3. No heavy traffic, please!
Good luck achieving all 3!
And yeah, public transport sucks here. For obvious reasons - nobody can design effective public transport when the average commute from someone's house to their work is fifteen miles one-way and there's no population density to speak of to make it cost-effective.
I consider myself lucky that I can just walk to a nice grocery store and don't have to get in a car to go buy some milk.
Comparisons between the governments of homogeneous states like Japan and sprawling unions like the USA are not particularly helpful. The nature of the problems the governments face is too different.
Instead, compare California to Japan. From this article, run the thought experiment of a California-wide zoning board.
So the linked article doesn't directly cite any work but does provide highlighted notes for an article, which I followed... which also doesn't actually cite anything. So I went down a rabbit hole of researching early zoning laws to evaluate a very specific claim: that the origin of zoning laws is racist.
In 1917 Buchanan v Warley mades directly racist zoning illegal... which affected a single city in Kentucky and otherwise had very little effect. In addition, the very first zoning laws didn't get passed until 1910 in the US and zoning didn't exist much until the 1920s [1] so that seems to undermine that claim as an emotional, not a factual one.
Everyone seems to suggest that the fix for high housing prices is to simply build more densely (more supply, same demand, therefore prices should go down right?). Yet that appears to not be the case either - as buildings get taller and more dense, costs seem to increase outside the direct supply/demand system [3] and those units which are built are typically more expensive then low density options.
and the federal housing project program created ghettos under the guise of providing adorable housing for the poor. They just wanted to concentrate the poor (read "black people") in certain areas.
> Everyone seems to suggest that the fix for high housing prices is to simply build more densely (more supply, same demand, therefore prices should go down right?). Yet that appears to not be the case either - as buildings get taller and more dense, costs seem to increase outside the direct supply/demand system [2] and those units which are built are typically more expensive then low density options.
The issue is that density attracts people when it's scarce, because people like it. You can walk to shops etc. So if you build a little bit of density, people want to live there and the price goes up.
What you need is to build a lot of density, so that the supply satisfies the whole demand and it actually gets the price down.
>Yet that appears to not be the case either - as buildings get taller and more dense, costs seem to increase outside the direct supply/demand system [3] and those units which are built are typically more expensive then low density options.
This is a correlation/causation error. Prices rise beyond marginal cost of constructing an additional unit in the presence of supply restrictions and increasing demand. Those conditions are often true in areas with high rise buildings (and the second is rarely true in areas without).
Separately, the marginal cost of construction is higher for a unit in a high rise than a unit in a single-story building.
This blog post is based on posts from the Urban kchoze blog, which has been linked on HN previously. I liked it so much I read the entire archive. One great post is about a possible remedy to American zoning: dynamic zoning.
It doesn't provide a direct route to move to Japanese-style zoning, but it would allow densities to increase organically based on demand in areas, which is a major component of Japanese zoning that is missing from American zoning.
If you are interested in these topics, I recommend the entire Urban kchoze archive.
Changing to it immediately would be impractical, but a steady transition would be pretty easily feasible, outside of the political concerns.
It's not like dense, mixed-use areas don't exist in the US -- NYC being the most obvious example. They're just uncommon because regulations force them to be uncommon. Where they do exist they work fine.
Of course not. It's an awful idea because as a diverse, representative democracy you'll be subject to the whims of the congress.
Do you really want rural conservatives who hate cities dictating urban land use as you would today?
Do you really want democrats with tight ties to big real estate interests (key members of the California delegation, for example) dictating land use policy?
Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley because everyone fled cities in the 50s and 60s to buy the then-american dream in the old orange groves. Whatever the next phase is, it isn't going to happen there.
As interesting as the article is why is it titled North America vs Japan? Not USA vs Japan or North America vs Asia? There are 23 countries and almost two dozen dependencies in North America.
This is something concrete we could push for to fix California's housing crisis. Something like this at the state level would go a long way toward making it easier to build efficiently so that supply can increase to match demand.
The biggest change I see from the NA model is that localities don't really have the ability to make their own rules. Seems like this would require a very strong movement at the state level to ever implement something like this.
We’re headed towards a new caste system in America: those who inherit houses / tax concessions / rent control in productive places, and those who don’t. In many ways this will be a rebalancing, as the middle-class from places on the way down gets locked out of the labor force and the poor from places on the way up find themselves with exclusive access to booming jobs markets. But I’d anticipate some serious civil unrest before the border controls around wealth centers like the Bay Area are truly solidified.
When I was a child and living my parents we had two properties: One small apartment in the city, and a big house with a sizable garden (like 50-60 trees) far in the suburb. We live 5 day of the week in the apartment and spend the weekend on the suburb.
I think it was the best setup. You get both of best world. During the week you are close to work, school, services and need absolutely no transportation. In the weekend you can barbecue.
Americans can have that luxury. I guess they just need to work harder to be able to afford two properties?
For the land of the free, some US rules are a shock to me.
Like how in many places you are not allowed to have a brown lawn, or one with taller weeds instead of grass.
> Grass or weeds taller than 8 inches is in violation of Minneapolis ordinance. If grass or weeds are taller than 8", an inspector may issue an order to the property owner giving them at least 3 days to cut it. If the violation is not corrected, inspectors may authorize a contractor to cut the grass and assess the costs and administrative fees to the owner.
It would be great to have improved zoning, but switching to Japanese-style zoning in the US doesn’t solve the problem of US housing being an investment vehicle for Global Capital.
In Japan, land itself keeps its (high) value, but still mostly grows/tracks with inflation. Houses themselves are seen as disposable with an approximately 30 year shelf-life.
[+] [-] avar|7 years ago|reply
Instead most of these parks have fences around the grass, and you're not allowed to lie down there and hang out. Some are also "temples" and have guards that'll yell at you if you even sit down out of the way on some stairs for a second.
I live in Amsterdam, and in general I'd much prefer living in a smaller house with no yard of my own if there's a big park nearby, but in Japan I'm not so sure. If I can't use the park for anything worthwhile (lie in the sun, have a BBQ etc.) I'd rather just live in an American-style suburb with my own small yard.
[+] [-] zumu|7 years ago|reply
I suspect what is a park and what isn't might not be easy to tell as a tourist. If you are trying to lounge in something that isn't technically a park, there's a good chance it won't be received well.
That being said, in Tokyo, most of the central public parks are packed during the weekends. Tokyo could definitely use a lot more, imho.
[+] [-] T-R|7 years ago|reply
Edit: Here's one of those parks: https://www.hamamatsu-pippi.net/docs/2014030700074/
[+] [-] cavanasm|7 years ago|reply
Source: https://www.amazon.com/Amys-Guide-Best-Behavior-Japan/dp/161...
[+] [-] TorKlingberg|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aplc0r|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] babesh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kettlecorn|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] morley|7 years ago|reply
* Decide to run for office
* Raise an enormous amount of money, somehow without indebting yourself to private interests
* Convince a large amount of people to vote you into office
* Bring to bear an enormous amount of political capital to convince other people to enact these changes
That involves no small amount of luck and personal charisma. I probably have none of these things, so that leaves me out.
There are other methods that are potentially easier (the one that comes to mind is effectively paying off an incumbent politician), but I'd roughly guess that there's only a 40-60% chance to get the outcome you want. Even easier actions, like calling your representatives, I'd peg at 2-5% expected value. Voting is <0.1%.
Are these really our only options? Am I thinking about this problem wrong? Is this just the great struggle of human governance we've been trying to solve for millenia?
[+] [-] jjaredsimpson|7 years ago|reply
America has a perverse relationship with politics, politicians, and governance. Politicians do some of the most important work possible in our society, but by underpaying you only attract certain types of people. Either those just hungry for power, using office as a stepping stone to wealth. Or those already wealthy looking to maintain existing structures and protect their wealth.
I don't mean to sound flippant. Our system of government is an evolved process settled on over millennia. It's really close to some local maximum.
My gripes are mostly centered around complaining that we "all know" there are obvious problems with the system but there isn't some obvious "continuous" path of from here to a better system.
If I were benevolent dictator I'd like to see something like futarchy. And even while saying that I'm not sure if it just appeals to my hyper rationalism or if it's genuinely better. I assume current legislator suffer from this same bias on all kinds of issues.
[+] [-] saalweachter|7 years ago|reply
Zoning isn't really driven by politicians in most polities in the US as it is the public who firmly believe their NIMBY-ism is necessary to protect their children, property values, and way of life (although not necessarily in that order of priorities). The local planning boards and town councils are mostly responding to whatever signals they receive from their constituents.
If you want to change things, you need to change public opinion. The best case scenario of jumping to the top with some sort of majority cabal and changing things against public opinion is that you'll be voted out in the next cycle and all of your changes undone.
Instead of campaigning for public office, you should start a campaign to inform the public with concrete, incremental, individual proposals for changes to zoning and explain how those proposals will increase property values, protect children, and improve the quality of life in a way consistent with people's desires.
If you succeed, whoever is currently in office will happily put your proposals into practice as a feather in their own cap.
And if you can't convince a majority of the people in your community, well, should your desires and opinions have priority over theirs?
[+] [-] stickfigure|7 years ago|reply
Look at the backlash over 'gentrification'. No, we like our squalor just the way it is!
What we really need to do is force every resident abroad for a year so that they can see the alternative to "life as I've always know it".
[+] [-] rch|7 years ago|reply
I'd like to see more support for credentialed STEM professionals who are willing to take time out of a career to hold public office, but there are at least a couple of options out there already.
Edit: Actually, working with a think tank like Rocky Mountain Institute might be even more in line with your thinking. Let me know if you're curious and I'd be happy to make some introductions.
[+] [-] raldi|7 years ago|reply
If a majority doesn't, then it's a feature of democracy rather than a bug that you probably won't be able to do it.
But lets assume you've identified a real winner of a platform. You don't have to start from zero to make it happen — there will be existing candidates and organizations looking to achieve the same goals as you, and you should just join those campaigns.
For example, many American cities have YIMBY clubs. Join yours and they'll have lots of great input on how you can put your finite volunteer time to effective political use.
[+] [-] rcpt|7 years ago|reply
I found chapters 6 and 7 of "The Captured Economy" by Lindsey and Teles to be the best exposition on this. They also detail a few ways one could change the system (eg. paying staffers more to attract better talent would make lobbyists jobs harder).
[+] [-] rayiner|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pc86|7 years ago|reply
* 3 retired people who asked or were asked to be on the zoning board * 3 vacant seats
Quorum is - you guessed it - 3.
If you live in my borough and you ask to be on the zoning board, you'll be appointed at the next council meeting. They almost never meet except when someone dies, someone new is appointed, or they need to reorganize (yearly).
Yeah there is a lot of paperwork and headache if you want to massively change the currently zoning of your area, but provided you're violating state or federal law in doing so it's not a remotely insurmountable task.
[+] [-] brudgers|7 years ago|reply
Martial law is probably not the alternative you're looking for.
[+] [-] TheJakeSchmidt|7 years ago|reply
I'm part of a group working on this problem in NYC. If you (or anyone else reading this) are in New York and potentially interested in helping, shoot me an email! (my HN username at gmail dot com)
[+] [-] sailfast|7 years ago|reply
I don't think you'll have to raise a lot of money to do this. Typically you really only need to have the desire to do it. Hardest part is probably convincing people to vote for you.
[+] [-] blacksmith_tb|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrischen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidw|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slivym|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Symmetry|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PopsiclePete|7 years ago|reply
They want:
1. Large, sparsely populated suburbs, away from everything. 2. Cars to drive long-distances from their suburbs to "the things we want to actually go to when not sleeping". 3. No heavy traffic, please!
Good luck achieving all 3!
And yeah, public transport sucks here. For obvious reasons - nobody can design effective public transport when the average commute from someone's house to their work is fifteen miles one-way and there's no population density to speak of to make it cost-effective.
I consider myself lucky that I can just walk to a nice grocery store and don't have to get in a car to go buy some milk.
[+] [-] pluma|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kindatrue|7 years ago|reply
Who would've thought that mindset would lead to unaffordable housing!
Or parents telling their children that they won't be able to live near their parents because... well... investment! Like this guy: https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/999364778907914245
[+] [-] crawshaw|7 years ago|reply
Instead, compare California to Japan. From this article, run the thought experiment of a California-wide zoning board.
[+] [-] vorpalhex|7 years ago|reply
In 1917 Buchanan v Warley mades directly racist zoning illegal... which affected a single city in Kentucky and otherwise had very little effect. In addition, the very first zoning laws didn't get passed until 1910 in the US and zoning didn't exist much until the 1920s [1] so that seems to undermine that claim as an emotional, not a factual one.
Everyone seems to suggest that the fix for high housing prices is to simply build more densely (more supply, same demand, therefore prices should go down right?). Yet that appears to not be the case either - as buildings get taller and more dense, costs seem to increase outside the direct supply/demand system [3] and those units which are built are typically more expensive then low density options.
[1] - https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/02-03.pdf
[3] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2017/08/31/high-rise...
--
[2] - http://marketurbanism.com/2017/11/01/does-density-raise-hous...
[+] [-] pitaj|7 years ago|reply
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/livable-city/la-oe-vallianato...
https://reason.com/archives/2014/04/02/zonings-racist-roots-...
Federal policies were also motivated by racism
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/the-rac...
and the federal housing project program created ghettos under the guise of providing adorable housing for the poor. They just wanted to concentrate the poor (read "black people") in certain areas.
[+] [-] AnthonyMouse|7 years ago|reply
The issue is that density attracts people when it's scarce, because people like it. You can walk to shops etc. So if you build a little bit of density, people want to live there and the price goes up.
What you need is to build a lot of density, so that the supply satisfies the whole demand and it actually gets the price down.
[+] [-] rory096|7 years ago|reply
This is a correlation/causation error. Prices rise beyond marginal cost of constructing an additional unit in the presence of supply restrictions and increasing demand. Those conditions are often true in areas with high rise buildings (and the second is rarely true in areas without).
Separately, the marginal cost of construction is higher for a unit in a high rise than a unit in a single-story building.
[+] [-] graeme|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gallerdude|7 years ago|reply
I think the Japanese system is better, I just fear that part of the benefit they have is cultural (harder to implement than laws).
[+] [-] dwater|7 years ago|reply
http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-to-make-urban-ho...
It doesn't provide a direct route to move to Japanese-style zoning, but it would allow densities to increase organically based on demand in areas, which is a major component of Japanese zoning that is missing from American zoning.
If you are interested in these topics, I recommend the entire Urban kchoze archive.
[+] [-] TulliusCicero|7 years ago|reply
It's not like dense, mixed-use areas don't exist in the US -- NYC being the most obvious example. They're just uncommon because regulations force them to be uncommon. Where they do exist they work fine.
[+] [-] Spooky23|7 years ago|reply
Do you really want rural conservatives who hate cities dictating urban land use as you would today?
Do you really want democrats with tight ties to big real estate interests (key members of the California delegation, for example) dictating land use policy?
Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley because everyone fled cities in the 50s and 60s to buy the then-american dream in the old orange groves. Whatever the next phase is, it isn't going to happen there.
[+] [-] dghughes|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] api|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdhn|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] closeparen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csomar|7 years ago|reply
I think it was the best setup. You get both of best world. During the week you are close to work, school, services and need absolutely no transportation. In the weekend you can barbecue.
Americans can have that luxury. I guess they just need to work harder to be able to afford two properties?
[+] [-] paulgrimes1|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tawm|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] g8oz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] beebmam|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 21|7 years ago|reply
Like how in many places you are not allowed to have a brown lawn, or one with taller weeds instead of grass.
> Grass or weeds taller than 8 inches is in violation of Minneapolis ordinance. If grass or weeds are taller than 8", an inspector may issue an order to the property owner giving them at least 3 days to cut it. If the violation is not corrected, inspectors may authorize a contractor to cut the grass and assess the costs and administrative fees to the owner.
[+] [-] knuththetruth|7 years ago|reply
In Japan, land itself keeps its (high) value, but still mostly grows/tracks with inflation. Houses themselves are seen as disposable with an approximately 30 year shelf-life.